Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

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Let us look back upon that work. We by no means aim at giving a
calm, well weighed, and deeply pondered estimate of it, but only
such a glance as the circumstances permit and require. His great
and special work was his advocacy of the principles of the Free
Church. Mr. Miller was _par excellence_ the popular expounder and
defender of these principles, whether in their embryotic state in
the Non-Intrusion party, or as embodied in the fully developed and
completely emancipated Free Protesting Church of Scotland. For this
service, in connection with which he would have best liked to be
remembered, as he best deserved it, he had unconsciously been
undergoing a course of preparation even when a boy. He himself has
told us with what eagerness he devoured, at that period of life,
the legendary histories of Wallace and Bruce; and the occupation
had its use. It gave him a capacity for admiring what was great
though perilous in exploit, and for truly and largely sympathizing
with what was patriotic and self-sacrificing in character; and so
it created a groundwork for his own future thinking and acting. The
admiration he then bore to these earliest of our "Scottish
Worthies," who vindicated on Bannockburn, and kindred fields,
Scotland's right to be an independent and free country, he
afterwards transferred to our later "Worthies," whom he revered as
greater still. Not that he ever lost his admiration of the former,
or ceased to value the incalculable services they rendered to the
Scottish nation; but that he regarded Knox and Melville as men
occupying a yet higher platform,--as gifted with a yet deeper
insight into their country's wants,--as, in short, carrying forward
and consummating the glorious task which Wallace and Bruce had but
begun. He saw that unless our reformers had come after our heroes,
planting schools, founding colleges, and, above all, imparting to
their countrymen a scriptural and rational faith, in vain had Bruce
unsheathed his sword,--in vain had Wallace laid down his life.
Wallace and Bruce had created an independent country; Knox and
Melville had created an independent people. They were the creators
of the Scottish nation,--the real enfranchisers of our people; and
it was this that taught Mr. Miller to venerate these men so
profoundly, and that made him in his inmost soul a devoted
follower, and to the utmost extent of his great faculties a
defender, of their cause. He was a soldier from love,--pure,
heroic, chivalrous devotion soaring infinitely above the partisan.
He saw that the Church of Scotland was the creator of the rights
and privileges of the people of Scotland,--that she was the grand
palladium of the country's liberties,--that while she stood an
independent and free institution, the people stood an independent
and free nation,--and that bonds to her meant slavery to them.
Therefore did he gird on the sword when he saw peril gathering
around her. The privileges,--the entire standing of the common
people, as given them by the Reformation,--he saw to be in danger:
he was "one of themselves;" and he felt and fought as if almost the
quarrel had been a personal one, and the question at issue his own
liberty or slavery. How richly equipped and nobly armed he came
into the field, we need not here state. What fulness yet precision
of ecclesiastical lore,--what strength and conclusiveness of
argument,--what flashes of humor, wit, and sarcasm,--and in what a
luminous yet profoundly philosophical light did he set the great
principles involved in the controversy, making them patent in the
very cottages of our land, and so fixing them in the understandings
of the very humblest of our people, that they never afterwards
could be either misunderstood or forgotten! It was thus that the
way was prepared for the great result of the 18th of May, 1843.

Of Mr. Miller, as a man of science and a public journalist, we
cannot speak at present at any length. In him the love of science
was deeply seated and early developed. The first arena on which he
appeared--obscure and humble as it was--afforded him special
opportunities of initiating himself into what to him was then, and
continued ever afterwards to be, a most fascinating study. The
study of geology was eagerly prosecuted amid the multifarious
duties, and during the brief pauses, of a busy life. Several
original discoveries rewarded his patient and laborious
investigations. He succeeded at length in placing his name in the
first rank of British scientific thinkers and writers. His works
are characterized by a fine union of strict science, classic
diction, and enchanting description, which rises not unfrequently
into the loftiest vein of poetry. The fruits of his researches were
ever made to bear upon the defence and elucidation of the Oracles
of Truth. Our common Christianity owes much to his pen. Viewing him
as a journalist, Mr. Miller not only excelled in article
writing,--the most difficult of all kinds of composition,--but, as
will be generally admitted, he has introduced a new era into
newspaper writing. If the moral tone of our newspaper press is
higher now than it was twenty-five years ago, we have Mr. Miller in
large degree to thank for it; and to him, too, is to be traced that
purer style and more philosophic spirit which begins to be
discernible in the columns of our public journals.

But the character in which his personal friends will deplore him
most, and will most frequently recall his memory, will be that of
the man. How meek and gentle he was!--how unpretending and modest,
even as a very child!--how true and steady in friendship!--how wise
and playful his mirth!--how ripened and chastened his wisdom!--how
ready to counsel!--how willing to oblige!--how generous and large
his sympathies! No little jealousies, no fretful envyings, had he!
Even in opposition, how noble and manly was he: if a powerful, he
was a fair and open antagonist; and whatever hard blows were
dealt, they were dealt in his own journal. We have seen him in
various moods and in all circumstances; but never did we hear him
utter an unkind or disparaging word of man. He was, too, a sincere
and humble Christian; and the lively faith which he cherished in
the adorable Redeemer and his all-efficacious sacrifice, bore
abundantly its good fruits in a life including no ordinary variety
of condition and trial, and running on to such term as to make
abundantly manifest what manner of man he was.

The article which follows is from the _Edinburgh News_. It is evidently from the pen of one who was intimately acquainted with Hugh Miller, and is worthy of attention, not only for its eloquent and discriminating notices of his works, but also for its statements respecting his great designs, never, alas, to be accomplished.

It is not many months since we chronicled the death of the greatest
of living Scotsmen, and the prince of modern philosophers--Sir
William Hamilton. These last few days have bereft us of another of
our countrymen not less illustrious, and known all over the world
as one of the princes of geology. We cannot well estimate the loss
which society sustains in the death of Mr. Miller. He occupied a
foremost place among us, and there is none on whom his mantle can
fall. In the world of letters his name takes high rank, for
undoubtedly he was one of the ablest writers in our literature. Who
can have read without delight his manly, vigorous language, soaring
sometimes into the highest eloquence, anon plunging into the depths
of metaphysical argument, or grappling with the dry technicalities
of science, yet ever rolling along with the same easy, onward flow?
His style has all the charm of Goldsmith's sweetness, with the
infusion of a rich vigor that gives it an air of great originality.
He is one of the few writers who have successfully conjoined the
graces of literature with the formal details of science, and whose
works are perused for their literary excellences, independently
altogether of their scientific merit. His writings will ever be
regarded among the classics of the English language. For obvious
reasons we pass over his editorial labors. It is on the republic of
science that his death will fall most heavily. There can be little
doubt that he has done more to popularize his favorite department
than any other writer. Of all geological works, his enjoy, perhaps,
the widest circulation--not in this country, merely, but all over
the world, and especially in the United States. His reputation,
however, does not rest solely on his standing as an exponent of
science to the people; he was himself an original and accurate
observer. When the infant science of geology was battling for
existence against the opposing phalanx of united Christendom, Hugh
Miller, then a mere lad, was quietly working as a stone-mason in
the north of Scotland, and employing his leisure time among the
fossil fishes of the Old Red Sandstone, and the ammonites and the
belemnites of the Lias, that abound in the neighborhood of
Cromarty. As years rolled slowly away, he continued his
observations, and when at length, in 1841, the results were given
to the world in his well known "Old Red Sandstone," every one was
charmed with the novelty and beauty of the style, and his
reputation as a writer was at once established. Men of science,
however, though acknowledging the graphic and elegant diction of
his descriptions, had some doubts as to their truthfulness. Indeed,
by some geologists they were cast aside as fanciful, and other
restorations of the Old Red fishes were proposed and adopted. Those
who are acquainted with Old Red ichthyolites, or who have had the
pleasure of examining the exquisite series in Mr. Miller's
collection, may well smile at the absurdity of the restorations
that were adopted. Yet some of these found their way into a work of
no little popularity,--Mantell's "Medals of Creation." It is
sufficient to state that the drawings there given bear no
resemblance to anything in the heavens above or on the earth
beneath, or in the waters under the earth, nor to any fossil
organism that has ever been discovered. At length the progress of
investigation led to the discarding of these monstrosities, and
Miller's restorations were returned to, as, after all, the true
ones. "The Old Red Sandstone" formed an era in the history of
fossil geology. That formation had hitherto been regarded as well
nigh barren of organic remains; but Mr. Miller demonstrated that it
contains at least three successive stages, each characterized by a
suite of uncouth and hitherto unknown fishes. A few years later he
published his "Footprints of the Creator." This is undoubtedly his
_chef-d'oeuvre_, exhibiting, as it does, the full powers of his
massive intellect and his poetic imagination. As a piece of
scientific investigation and research, it is of a very high order;
as a reply to the crudities of the development theory, it is
unanswerable; and as a contribution to our physico-theological
literature, it ranks, with Chalmers' "Astronomical Lectures," among
the finest in this or any other language. Some of the ideas are as
profound as they are original, opening up a new field of thought,
which it was doubtless the intention of the deceased himself to
cultivate. His published works, however, contain but a fraction, of
the labors of his lifetime. For many years past he has been, one of
the most energetic members of the Royal Physical Society, at whose
meetings he from time to time made known the progress of his
researches. Were these papers collected, they would form several
goodly volumes. But their author studiously refrained from
publishing them, save occasionally in the columns of the _Witness_
newspaper. It was his intention that they should each form a part
of the great work of his life, to which for many years his leisure
moments had been devoted. His design was to combine the results of
all his labors among the different rock formations of Scotland into
one grand picture of the geological history of our country. For
this end he had explored a large part of the Scottish counties,
anxious that his statements should rest as far as possible upon the
authority of his own personal investigations. His knowledge of the
geology of the country was thus far more extensive than was
generally supposed. We may refer particularly to that branch of it
on which he bestowed the unremitted attention of his closing
years,--the palæontological history of the glacial beds,--that
strange and as yet almost unknown period that ushered in the
existing creation. He studied it minutely along the shores of the
Moray Firth, on the east coast of Scotland, along the shores of
Fife and the Lothians, and on the coast of Ayrshire and the Firth
of Clyde. This last summer he made a tour through the centre of the
island, and obtained boreal shells at Buchlyvie in
Stirlingshire,--the _omphalos_ of Scotland. The importance of this
discovery, in connection with those he had previously made in
following out the same chain of evidence, can only be appreciated
by those who have paid some attention to geology. We may state
briefly that it proves the central area of Scotland to have been
submerged beneath an icy sea, and icebergs to have grated along
over what is now the busy valley of the Forth and Clyde, while the
waters were tenanted by shells at present found only in the
Northern Ocean. A large part of his work is written, though it is
to be feared that much knowledge, amassed in the course of its
preparation, has perished with him. In particular, there were whole
sections of his Museum understood only by himself. Every little
fragment had its story, and contributed its quota of evidence to
the truth of his descriptions. There is, perhaps, but another mind
in Britain,--that of Sir Philip Egerton,--that can catch up the
thread, and read off, though with difficulty, the meaning of those
carefully arranged fragments. Yet, even with such aid, much must
long, if not forever, remain dark and obscure. The work on which he
was more immediately engaged at the time of his death was partly
theological, partly scientific. It was to embrace the substance of
some lectures lately delivered, and a paper read last year before
the British Association at Glasgow on the fossil plants collected
by himself from the Oolite and Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. It
was likewise to contain the figures of some thirty or forty
hitherto undescribed species of vegetables. We hope that, as it was
all but ready for publication, it may yet be given to the world.

The name of Hugh Miller will ever stand forth as synonymous with
all that is honest and manly; as the impersonation of moral courage
and indomitable energy; as the true ideal of a self-educated man.
From the humblest sphere of life, and from the toils of a
stone-mason's apprentice, without means, without friends, without
other than the most rudimentary education, he rose, by his own
unaided and unwearied exertions, to fill one of the brightest pages
in the annals of our country. And when, in future years, an example
is sought of unconquerable perseverance, of fearless integrity, and
of earnest, ceaseless activity, the voice of universal approbation
shall proclaim--"_the stone-mason of Cromurty_." We have spoken of
this mournful event only as a public calamity; yet, to those who
were personally acquainted with the departed, it is invested with
no ordinary sadness. Long, long shall they remember the playful
fancy, the rich humor, the warm, genial heart of their friend. His
simple, open frankness endeared him to every one, though his
retiring disposition prevented him from making many intimate
friendships. To those who enjoyed this higher privilege, his death
must have caused the most poignant regret. Yet what can even their
sorrow be to that of the relatives of the departed? We lament the
death of one who was alike an honor to his profession, to
literature, to science, and to his country,--one of the most loved
and cherished of friends. Let us not forget to mingle our sympathy
and our sorrow with that deeper grief that mourns the loss of a
husband and a father.

As coming from a different quarter, and presenting a somewhat different view, the following, from the _London Literary Gazette_, should have a place here.

Hugh Miller was born at Cromarty in 1805. In his early life he
worked as a laborer in the Sandstone quarries in his native
district, and afterwards as a stone-mason in different parts of
Scotland. In a work published in 1854, "My Schools and
Schoolmasters, or the story of my Education," Mr. Miller gives a
most interesting account of his early history, and of the training
and self-culture by which he rose to honorable rank in literature
and science. Notwithstanding the unpretending statements of this
narrative, and the disavowal of any other elements of success than
are within ordinary reach, every reader of that book feels that
homage is due to a genius original and rare, as well as to natural
talents diligently and judiciously cultivated. While professedly
written for the benefit of the working classes of his own country,
there are few who may not derive pleasant and profitable lessons
from this most remarkable piece of autobiography. After being
engaged in manual labor for about fifteen years, Mr. Miller was for
some time manager of a bank that was established in his native
town. While in this position, a pamphlet that he published, on the
ecclesiastical controversies which then distracted Scotland,
attracted the attention of the leaders of the party who now form
the Free Church, and they invited him to be editor of the _Witness_
newspaper, then about to be established for the advocacy of their
principles. Mr. Miller had already published a volume of "Legendary
Tales of Cromarty," of which the late Baron Hume, nephew of the
historian, himself a man of much judgment and taste, said it was
"written in an English style, which he had begun to regard as one
of the lost arts." The ability displayed by Mr. Miller as editor of
the _Witness_, and the influence exerted by him on ecclesiastical
and educational events in Scotland, are well known. Mr. Miller did
not confine his newspaper to topics of local or passing interest.
In its columns he made public his geological observations and
researches; and most of his works originally appeared in the form
of articles in that newspaper. It was in 1840, the year at which
the autobiographical memoir closes, that the name of Hugh Miller
first became widely known beyond his own country.

At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science at Glasgow that year, Sir Roderick, then Mr. Murchison,
gave an account of the striking discoveries recently made in the
Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. M. Agassiz, who was present, pointed
out the peculiarities and the importance of these discoveries; and
it was on this occasion that he proposed to associate the name of
Mr. Miller with them, by the wonderful fossil, the _Pterichthys
Milleri_, specimens of which were then under the notice of the
section. Dr. Buckland, following M. Agassiz, said that "he had
never been so much astonished in his life by the powers of any man
as he had been by the geological descriptions of Mr. Miller. He
described these objects with a felicity which made him ashamed of
the comparative meagreness and poverty of his own descriptions in
the 'Bridgewater Treatise,' which had cost him hours and days of
labor. He (Dr. Buckland) _would give his left hand to possess such
powers of description as this man_; and if it pleased Providence to
spare his useful life, he, if any one, would certainly render the
science attractive and popular, and do equal service to theology
and geology." At the meetings of the Association, the language of
panegyric and of mutual compliment is not unfrequent, and does not
signify much; but these were spontaneous tributes of praise to one
comparatively unknown. The publication of the volume on the "Old
Red Sandstone," with the details of the author's discoveries and
researches, more than justified all the anticipations that had been
formed. It was received with highest approbation, not by men of
science alone, for the interest of its facts, but by men of
letters, for the beauty of its style. Sir Roderick Murchison, in
his address to the Geological Society that year, "hailed the
accession to their science of such a writer," and said that "his
work is, to a beginner, worth a thousand didactic treatises." The
_Edinburgh Review_ spoke of the book being "as admirable for the
clearness of its descriptions, and the sweetness of its
composition, as for the purity and gracefulness that pervade it."
The impression made by such a testimony was the more marked, that
the reviewer spoke of the writer as a fellow countryman,
"meritorious and self-taught."

In 1847 appeared "First Impressions of England and its People," the
result of a tour made during the previous year. Some parts of this
book, especially the account of the pilgrimages to
Stratford-on-Avon, and the Leasowes, and Olney, and other places
memorable for their literary associations, are as fine pieces of
descriptive writing as the English language possesses. This magic
of style characterized all his works, whether those of a more
popular kind, or his scientific treatises, such as the "Old Red
Sandstone," and "Footprints of the Creator," a volume suggested by
the "Vestiges of Creation," and subversive of the fallacies of that
superficial and plausible book. Not one of the authors of our day
has approached Hugh Miller as a master of English composition, for
the equal of which we must go back to the times of Addison, Hume,
and Goldsmith. Other living writers have now a wider celebrity, but
they owe it much to the peculiarities of their style or the
popularity of their topics. Mr. Miller has taken subjects of
science, too often rendered dry and repulsive, and has thrown over
them an air of attractive romance. His writings on literature,
history, and politics, are known to comparatively few, from having
appeared in the columns of a local newspaper. A judicious selection
from his miscellaneous articles in the _Witness_ would widely
extend his fame, and secure for him a place, in classic English
literature, as high as he held during his life as a periodical
writer and as a scientific geologist.

The personal appearance of Mr. Miller, or "Old Red," as he was
familiarly named by his scientific friends, will not be forgotten
by any who have seen him. A head of great massiveness, magnified by
an abundant profusion of sub-Celtic hair, was set on a body of
muscular compactness, but which in later years felt the undermining
influence of a life of unusual physical and mental toil. Generally
wrapped in a bulky plaid, and with a garb ready for any work, he
had the appearance of a shepherd from the Rosshire hills rather
than an author and a man of science. In conversation or in
lecturing, the man of original genius and cultivated mind at once
shone out, and his abundant information and philosophical acuteness
were only less remarkable than his amiable disposition, his
generous spirit, and his consistent, humble piety. Literature and
science have lost in him one of their brightest ornaments, and
Scotland one of its greatest men.

* * * * *

On the Sabbath following Mr. Miller's death, sermons referring to the event were preached in many of the churches in Edinburgh. Some of these were reported in the newspapers, among which may be mentioned those by the Rev. Drs. Hanna, Guthrie, Hetherington, Begg, and Tweedie.

On Monday, December the 29th, the Funeral Obsequies were performed. The following account of the imposing ceremonial is from the _Edinburgh Witness_.

FUNERAL OF MR. HUGH MILLER.

The mortal remains of this truly great man were consigned to the
grave on Monday, amid the most marked demonstrations of sorrow on
the part of the entire community.

The private company, numbering about sixty individuals, met at
Shrub Mount, the residence of the deceased at Portobello, about a
quarter to one in the afternoon. Amongst those present were the
Lord Provost of Edinburgh; A.M. Dunlop, Esq., M.P.; A. Black, Esq.,
M.P.; Professors Simpson, Balfour, and Fraser; Rev. Principal
Cunningham; Professor James Buchanan; Rev. Drs. Guthrie, Candlish,
Hanna, Bruce, Begg, Hetherington, and Wylie; Rev. Messrs. M'Kenzie
of Dunfermline, Cameron and Hunter of Nagpoor; Maurice Lothian,
Esq.; Geo. Dalziell, Esq., W.S.; W. Wood, Esq.; R. Paul, Esq.;
Francis Russell, Esq., advocate; M. Torrance, Esq.; Dr. Russell;
Dr. Geo. Bell; J.F. Macfarlan, Esq.; Archibald Gibson, Esq.; and
Councillor Johnston. The devotional exercises were conducted by Dr.
Guthrie, who was deeply affected during the prayer, and whose
feelings at times threatened to overcome him.

Thirteen two-horse mourning coaches were here in waiting to convey
the company to the place of sepulture in the Grange Cemetery,
preceded by the hearse, which had four horses.

The melancholy event, as might have been expected, cast a gloom
over the whole of Portobello; and the Provost and Magistrates,
anticipating the general feeling of the inhabitants, to whom Mr.
Miller had endeared himself by his genius and the modesty of his
demeanor, and also by the readiness which he ever displayed to
contribute to their intellectual elevation, by taking part in
several courses of popular lectures in the town, recommended the
closing of the different shops,--a request which was at once
readily complied with. Another striking proof of the general desire
to pay the last tribute of respect to the remains of the deceased,
was furnished by the circumstance that upwards of one hundred
gentlemen, many of whom had, so recently as the previous Tuesday,
listened to the reading of one of the ablest of his lectures, by
the Rev. Mr. Wight, the Congregational minister, met at half-past
twelve in the Free Church, in order to accompany the funeral,
either on foot or in carriages, to the burial place,--a distance of
about four miles. After a short, impressive religious service,
conducted by the Rev. Mr. Philip and the Rev. Mr. Wight, they
proceeded to join the private company, who had by this time taken
their places in the mourning carriages, on their way to Edinburgh.

On reaching the General Post-Office, in Waterloo Place, the ranks
of the funeral procession were largely augmented, there being here
as many as from twenty to thirty private carriages in waiting,
filled with the leading citizens, and a large body of the
inhabitants, of all ranks, classes, and denominations, drawn up in
line three or four abreast.

The Kirk-Session of Free St. John's, of which Mr. Miller was an
office-bearer, headed by the Rev. Dr. Guthrie and the Rev. Dr.
Hanna, who left the carriage at the Post-Office, occupied the front
of the procession, immediately followed by the Royal Physical
Society, of which the lamented deceased was a leading member, the
_employes_ in the _Witness_ office, and a large body of the general
public. A still more numerous body of the citizens, as well as of
parties from Glasgow, Liverpool, Stirling, Bridge of Allan, and
other parts of the country, drew up in the rear of the long line of
carriages, while the sides of the streets were also lined with
mourners, who accompanied the procession to the Cemetery. Besides
the large concourse of people who here joined the procession, the
whole front of the Register Office and the corners of the North
Bridge were densely occupied by some thousands of spectators; and
it may be safely said, that no event since the death of Dr.
Chalmers has caused such deep-felt sorrow and regret in Edinburgh.
The numbers present in the funeral _cortege_ must have amounted to
from one to two thousand; indeed, one paper states that "at one
time there could not have been many less than four thousand people
in the procession;" whilst another journal says, that although the
inclemency of the weather, the day being one of the dreariest of
the season, "kept back many who would otherwise have swelled the
line of mourners, even with this drawback, it has been informed
that the attendance was even greater than on the occasion of the
funeral of Dr. Chalmers in 1847."

After a short delay, caused by these accessions to the procession,
the whole moved up the North Bridge. It was gratifying to observe
that nearly all the shops on the North and South Bridges, and in
Nicolson and Clerk streets, along which the _cortege_ passed, were
closed; and along the whole route many a saddened countenance and
tearful eye could be seen, all testifying to the deep respect
entertained for him whose manly form had so often traversed these
same streets.

On reaching the entrance of the Grange Cemetery, the coffin was
removed from the hearse, and borne shoulder high to the tomb,
followed by the pall-bearers and the general company. The ground
selected for the burial-place is the westmost space but one on the
northern side of the Cemetery, and in a line with the graves of Dr.
Chalmers, Sir Andrew Agnew, and Sheriff Speirs, with which it is in
close proximity. As many of our readers are aware, the situation is
one of surpassing scenic beauty, and was described by the
deceased's own matchless pen but a few years ago, on the occasion
of the burial of Chalmers; and certainly in the grave of Hugh
Miller a new feature of attraction has been added to the spot.

The pall-bearers were Mr. Miller's oldest son,--a boy about
fourteen years of age,--who was accompanied by his younger brother,
six or seven years old; Mr. A. Williamson, his half-brother and
nearest kinsman; Mr. Fairly, his partner in business; Rev. Dr.
Guthrie, Rev. Dr. Hanna, Mr. Dunlop, M.P., Mr. R. Paul, and
Principal Cunningham.

The mournful ceremony was now near its close. As the heavy, dull
sound, caused by the fall of the damp earth upon the coffin, fell
upon the ear, a sad and painful sensation crept over the frame,
increased as this was by the wintry aspect of the day and the heavy
leaden sky, which, like a pall, was spread over the face of nature,
in striking harmony with the solemnity of the scene. A few minutes
more, and all was over; and the vast company, uncovered, paid the
closing mark of respect to the ashes of the mighty dead. A touching
scene occurred at the close of all. After the whole of the company
had retired, a laboring man, clad in humble habiliments, seized
hold of a handful of ivy or laurel leaves, and gently strewed them
upon the grave, while the tearful eye eloquently spoke of the
strength of his feelings.

So passed away one of whom Dr. Chalmers made the remark that "since Scott's death he was the greatest Scotchman that was left." "The space his name occupied in the literary and scientific world," says another, "could hardly have been conjectured, but for the blank he leaves behind him now that he has left it. Other men may have extended the domain of science wider; but no man has done more to extend the circle of its votaries by the magic of his style and the life-like power of his descriptions; nor has any man done more to keep together the claims, too often made to appear divergent, of Science and Religion, and to blend them into one intelligent and reasonable service. It was worth while to have lived to effect this, even at the cost of the clouds which saddened and darkened the close. But

----'glory without end Scatters the clouds away; and on that name attend The thanks and praises of all time.'"

A PRAYER

BY JOHN KNOX,

MADE AT THE FIRST ASSEMBLIE OF THE CONGREGATION, WHEN THE
CONFESSION OF OUR FAITHE AND WHOLE ORDERS OF THE CHURCH WAS THERE
RED AND APPROVED.[3]

O Lord God Almightie, and Father moste mcrcifull, there is none lyke thee in heaven nor in earthe, which workest all thinges for the glorie of thy name and the comfort of thyne elect. Thou dydst once make man ruler over all thy creatures, and placed hym in the garden of all pleasures; but how soone, alas, dyd he in his felicitie forget thy goodness? Thy people Israel also, in their wealth dyd evermore runne astray, abusinge thy manifold mercies; lyke as all fleshe contynually rageth when it hath gotten libertie and external prosperitie. But such is thy wisdome adjoyned to thy mercies, deare Father, that thou sekest all means possible to brynge thy chyldren to the sure sense and lyvely feelinge of thy fatherly favour. And therefore when prosperitie wyll not serve, then sendest thow adversitie, graciously correctinge all thy chyldren whome thou receyvest into thy howshold. Wherfore we, wretched and miserable synners, render unto thee most humble and hartie thankes, that yt hath pleased thee to call us home to thy folde by thy Fatherly correction at this present, wheras in our prosperitie and libertie we dyd neglect thy graces offered unto us. For the which negligence, and many other grevous synnes whereof we now accuse our selves before thee, thow mightest moste justly have gyven us up to reprobate mynds and induration of our hartes, as thow haste done others. But such is thy goodnes, O Lord, that thou semest to forget alt our offences, and haste called us of thy good pleasure from all idolatries into this Citie most Christianlye refourmed, to professe thy name, and to suffer some crosse amongest thy people for thy truth and Gospell's sake; and so to be thy wytnesses with thy Prophets and Apostles, yea, with thy dearely beloved Sonne Jesus Christ our head, to whome thow dost begynne here to fashion us lyke, that in his glorie we may also be lyke hym when he shall appear. O Lord God, what are we upon whome thowe shuldest shewe this great mercye? O moste lovynge Lord, forgyve us our unthankfulnes, and all our synnes, for Jesus Christ's sake. O heavenly Father, increase thy Holy Spirit in us, to teache our heartes to cry Abba, deare Father! to assure us of our eternal election in Christ; to revele thy wyll more and more towards us; to confirme us so in thy trewthe, that we may lyve and dye therein; and that by the power of the same Spirit we may boldlely gyve an accompts of our faith to all men with humblenes and mekenes, that whereas they backbyte and slaunder us as evyll doers, they may be ashamed and once stopp their mowthes, seinge our good conversation in Christ Iesu, for whose sake we beseche thee, O Lord God, to guide, governe, and prosper this our enterprise in assemblinge our bretherne, to prayse thy holie name. And not only to be here present with us thy children according to thy promesse, but also mercifullie to assist thy like persecuted people, our Bretherne, gathered in all other places, that they and we, consentinge together in one spirite and truethe, may (all worldly respectes set a part) seke thy onely honor and glorie in all our and their Assemblies.

SO BE IT.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS.

LECTURE FIRST.

THE PALÆONTOLOGICAL HISTORY OF PLANTS.

Palæontology, or the science of ancient organisms, deals, as its subject, with all the plants and animals of all the geologic periods. It bears nearly the same sort of relation to the _physical_ history of the past, that biography does to the civil and political history of the past. For just as a complete biographic system would include every name known to the historian, a complete palæontologic system would include every fossil known to the geologist. It enumerates and describes all the organic existences of all the extinct creations,--all the existences, too, of the present creation that occur in the fossil or semi-fossil form; and, thus coextensive in space with the earth's surface,--nay, greatly more than coextensive with the earth's surface,--for in the vast hieroglyphic record which our globe composes, page lies beneath page, and inscription covers over inscription,--coextensive, too, in time, with every period in the terrestrial history since being first began upon our planet,--it presents to the student a theme so vast and multifarious, that it might seem but the result, on his part, of a proper modesty, conscious of the limited range of his powers, and of the brief and fleeting term of his life, were he to despair of being ever able effectually to grapple with it. "But," to borrow from one of the most ingenious of our Scottish metaphysicians, "in this, as in other instances in which nature has given us difficulties with which to cope, she has not left us to be wholly overcome." "If," says Dr. Thomas Brown, in his remarks on the classifying principle,--"if she has placed us in a labyrinth, she has at the same time furnished us with a clue which may guide us, not, indeed, through all its dark and intricate windings, but through those broad paths which conduct us into day. The single power by which we discover resemblance or relation in general, is a sufficient aid to us in the perplexity or confusion of our first attempts at arrangement. It begins by converting thousands, and more than thousands, into one; and, reducing in the same manner the numbers thus formed, it arrives at last at the few distinctive characters of those great comprehensive tribes on which it ceases to operate, because there is nothing left to oppress the memory or the understanding."

But, is this all? Can the Palæontologist but say that that classifying principle, which in every other department of science yields such assistance to the memory, is also of use in his, or but urge that it enables him to sort and arrange his facts; and that, by converting one idea into the type and exemplar of many resembling ones, it imparts to him an ability of carrying not inadequate conceptions of the mighty whole in his mind? If this were all, you might well ask, Why obtrude upon us, in connection with your special science, a common semi-metaphysical idea, equally applicable to all the sciences,--in especial, for example, to that botany which is the science of existing plants, and to that zoology which is the science of existing animals? Nay, I reply, but it is not all. I refer to this classifying principle because, while it exists in relation to all other sciences as a principle--to use the words of the metaphysician just quoted--"given to us by nature,"--as a principle of _the mind within_,--it exists in Palæontological science as a principle of nature itself,--as a principle palpably _external to the mind_. It is a marvellous fact, whose full meaning we can as yet but imperfectly comprehend, that myriads of ages ere there existed a human mind, well nigh the same principles of classification now developed by man's intellect in our better treatises of zoology and botany, were developed on this earth by the successive geologic periods; and that the by-past productions of our planet, animal and vegetable, were chronologically arranged in its history, according to the same laws of thought which impart regularity and order to the works of the later naturalist and phytologists.

I need scarce say how slow and interrupted in both provinces the course of arrangement has been, or how often succeeding writers have had to undo what their predecessors had done, only to have their own classifications set aside by _their_ successors in turn. At length, however, when the work appears to be well nigh completed, a new science has arisen, which presents us with a very wonderful means of testing it. Cowley, in his too eulogistic ode to Hobbes,--smit by the singular ingenuity of the philosophic infidel, and unable to look through his sophisms to the consequences which they involved,--could say, in addressing him, that

"only God could know Whether the fair idea he did show Agreed entirely with God's own or no."

And he then not very wisely added,--

"This, I dare boldly tell,
'T is so like truth, 't will serve our turn as well."

We now know, however, that no mere resemblance to truth will for any considerable length of time serve its turn. It is because the resemblances have, like those of Hobbes, been mere resemblances, that so much time and labor have had to be wasted by the pioneers of science in their removal; and, now that a wonderful opportunity has occurred of comparing, in this matter of classification, the human with the Divine idea,--the idea embodied by the zoologists and botanists in their respective systems, with the idea embodied by the Creator of all in geologic history,--we cannot perhaps do better, in entering upon our subject, than to glance briefly at the great features in which God's order of classification, as developed in Palæontology, agrees with the order in which man has at length learned to range the living productions, plant and animal, by which he is surrounded, and of which he himself forms the most remarkable portion. In an age in which a class of writers not without their influence in the world of letters would fain repudiate every argument derived from _design_, and denounce all who hold with Paley and Chalmers as anthropomorphists, that labor to create for themselves a god of their own type and form, it may be not altogether unprofitable to contemplate the wonderful parallelism which exists between the Divine and human systems of classification, and--remembering that the geologists who have discovered the one had no hand in assisting the naturalists and phytologists who framed the other--soberly to inquire whether we have not a new argument in the fact for an identity in constitution and quality of the Divine and human minds,--not a mere fanciful identity, the result of a disposition on the part of man to imagine to himself a God bearing his own likeness, but an identity real and actual, and the result of that creative act by which God formed man in his own image.

The study of plants and animals seems to have been a favorite one with thoughtful men in every age of the world. According to the Psalmist, these great "works of the Lord are sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." The Book of Job, probably the oldest writing in existence, is full of vivid descriptions of the wild denizens of the flood and desert; and it is expressly recorded of the wise old king, that he "spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; and also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes." Solomon was a zoologist and botanist; and there is palpable classification in the manner in which his studies are described. It is a law of the human mind, as has been already said, that, wherever a large stock of facts are acquired, the classifying principle steps in to arrange them. "Even the rudest wanderer in the fields," says Dr. Brown, "finds that the profusion of blossoms around him--in the greater number of which he is able himself to discover many striking resemblances--may be reduced to some order of arrangement." But, for many centuries, this arranging faculty labored but to little purpose. As specimens of the strange classification that continued to obtain down till comparatively modern times, let us select that of two works which, from the literary celebrity of their authors, still possess a classical standing in letters,--Cowley's "Treatise on Plants," and Goldsmith's "History of the Earth and Animated Nature." The plants we find arranged by the poet on the simple but very inadequate principle of size and show. Herbs are placed first, as lowest and least conspicuous in the scale; then flowers; and, finally, trees. Among the herbs, at least two of the ferns--the true maidenhair and the spleenwort--are assigned places among plants of such high standing as sage, mint, and rosemary: among the flowers, monocotyledons, such as the iris, the tulip, and the lily, appear among dicotyledons, such as the rose, the violet, the sunflower, and the auricula: and among trees we find the palms placed between the plum and the olive; and the yew, the fir, and the juniper, flanked on one side by the box and the holly, and on the other by the oak. Such, in treating of plants, was the classification adopted by one of the most learned of English poets in the year 1657.

Nor was Goldsmith,-who wrote more than a century later, much more fortunate in dealing with the animal kingdom. Buffon had already published his great work; and even he could bethink him of no better mode of dividing his animals than into wild and tame. And in Goldsmith, who adopted, in treating of the mammals, a similar principle, we find the fishes and molluscs placed, in advance of the sauroid, ophidian, and batrachian reptiles,--the whale united in close relationship to the sharks and rays,--animals of the tortoise kind classed among animals of the lobster kind, and both among shell fish, such as the snail, the nautilus, and the oyster. And yet Goldsmith was engaged on his work little more than eighty years ago. In fine, the true principles of classification in the animal kingdom are of well nigh as recent development as geologic science itself, and not greatly more ancient in even the _vegetable_ kingdom. It would, of course, be wholly out of place to attempt giving a minute history here of the progress of arrangement in either department; but it can scarce be held that the natural system of plants was other than very incomplete previous to 1789, when Jussieu first enunciated his scheme of classification; nor did it receive its later improvements until so late as 1846, when, after the publication, in succession, of the schemes of De Candolle and Endlicher, Lindley communicated his finished system to the world. And there certainly existed no even tolerably perfect system of zoology until 1816, when the "Animal Kingdom" of Cuvier appeared. Later naturalists,--such as Agassiz, in his own special department, the history of fishes, and Professor Owen in the invertebrate divisions,--have improved on the classification of even the great Frenchman; but for purposes of comparison between the scheme developed in geologic history and that at length elaborated by the human mind, the system of Cuvier will be found, for at least our present purpose, sufficiently complete. And in tracing through time the course of the vegetable kingdom, let us adopt, as our standard to measure it by, the system of Lindley.

Commencing at the bottom of the scale, we find the Thallogens, or flowerless plants which lack proper stems and leaves,--a class which includes all the algæ. Next succeed the Acrogens, or flowerless plants that possess both stems and leaves,--such as the ferns and their allies. Next, omitting an inconspicuous class, represented by but a few parasitical plants incapable of preservation as fossils, come the Endogens,--monocotyledonous flowering plants, that include the palms, the liliaceæ, and several other families, all characterized by the parallel venation of their leaves. Next, omitting another inconspicuous tribe, there follows a very important class,--the Gymnogens,--polycotyledonous trees, represented by the conifers; and cycadaceæ. And, last of all, come the Dicotyledonous Exogens,--a class to which all our fruit, and what are known as our "forest trees," belong, with a vastly preponderating majority of the herbs and flowers that impart fertility and beauty to our gardens and meadows. This last class, though but one, now occupies much greater space in the vegetable kingdom than all the others united.

Such is the arrangement of Lindley, or rather an arrangement the slow growth of ages, to which this distinguished botanist has given the last finishing touches. And let us now mark how closely it resembles the geologic arrangement as developed in the successive stages of the earth's history.

THE GENEALOGY OF PLANTS.]

The most ancient period of whose organisms any trace remains in the rocks seems to have been, prevailingly at least, a period of Thallogens. We must, of course, take into account the fact, that it has yielded no land plants, and that the sea is everywhere now, as of old, the great habitat of the algæ,--one of the four great orders into which the Thallogens are divided. There appear no traces of a terrestrial vegetation until we reach the uppermost beds of the Upper Silurian System. But, account for the fact as we may, it is at least worthy of notice, that, alike in the systems of our botanists and in the chronological arrangements of our geologists, the first or introductory class which occurs in the ascending order is this humble Thallogenic class. There is some trace in the Lower Silurians of Scotland of a vegetable structure which may have belonged to one of the humbler Endogens, of which, at least, a single genus, the _Zosteraceæ,_ still exists in salt water; but the trace is faint and doubtful, and, even were it established, it would form merely a solitary exception to the general evidence that the first known period of vegetable existence was a period of Thallogens. The terrestrial remains of the Upper Silurians of England, the oldest yet known, consist chiefly of spore-like bodies, which belonged, says Dr. Hooker, to Lycopodiaceæ,--an order of the second or acrogenic class. And, in the second great geologic period,--that of the Old Red Sandstone,--we find this second class not inadequately represented. In its lowest fossiliferous beds we detect a Lycopodite which not a little resembles one of the commonest of our club mosses,--_Lycopodium clavatum_,--with a minute fern and a large striated plant resembling a calamite, and evidently allied to an existing genus of Acrogens, the equisetaceæ. In the Middle Old Red Sandstone there also occurs a small fern, with some trace of a larger; and one of its best preserved vegetable organisms is a lepidodendron,--an extinct ally of the Lycopodiums; while in the upper beds of the system, especially as developed in the south of Ireland, the noble fern known as _Cyclopteris Hibernicus_ is very abundant. This fern has been detected also in the Upper Old Red of our own country, mingled with fragments of contemporary calamites. With, however, these earliest plants of the land yet known, there occurs a true wood, which belonged, as shown by its structure, to a gymnospermous or polycotyledonous tree, and which we find associated with remains of Coccosteus and Diplacanthus.

CYCLOPTERIS HIBERNICUS.

(Nat. size.)]

CONIFER OF THE LOWER OLD RED SANDSTONE.

Cromarty.

(Mag. forty diameters.)]

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The Testimony of the RocksChapter II: Front Matter (2)

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